Geraldo Watch: 23% in NJ Sen. poll

2/21/13 7:20 AM EST

Fox News host and commentator Geraldo Rivera continues to make a poor showing in New Jersey Senate polls.

A new survey from Quinnipiac shows Rivera with just 23 percent of voters' support in a theoretical race against Newark Mayor Cory Booker, who earned 59 percent. This comes on the heels of a Monmouth University poll, which found that only 26 percent of New Jersey voters are "very" or "somewhat" likely to vote for Rivera should he choose to run.

Rivera announced earlier this month that he is “truly contemplating” a Senate bid, though he has not made a formal announcement. He has criticized the "moribund" GOP for being a “party of scolds," but told Fox News host Bill O'Reilly that it could be revived in the Garden State.

Republican voters supported Rivera 54-23 percent in the Quinnipiac survey, but Booker led all other political, gender, income, age and regional groups. Republicans were also the only group with a positive opinion of Rivera, at 34-25 percent. This is consistent with the Monmouth poll, in which nearly two-thirds of those surveyed said they would not be likely to vote for Rivera, including a 51-percent majority who said they would not consider voting for him at all.

Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, doesn't favor those chances.

"If TV personality Geraldo Rivera is just testing the water for a U.S. Senate run in New Jersey, he might find that the water is colder than the Atlantic Ocean in February," Carroll said in a statement.